Telltale games Tweeted on Wednesday that the fourth episode of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier is now right around the corner. In fact, Episode 4: Thicker Than Water will be landing next Tuesday, on April 25th, 2017. Yesterday, they released the teaser trailer for the latest episode in their zombie apocalypse saga.
Episode 4: Thicker Than Blood will continue the story of Javi and Clementine and fans will finally get to see what happens after the cliffhanger at the end of Episode 3: Above the Law. The Walking Dead: A New Frontier has been very good so far, and Episode 4 will no doubt also be good.
#TheWalkingDead: A New Frontier Ep 4 'Thicker Than Water' will be available to download starting 4/25!
Official trailer tomorrow!#HangTight pic.twitter.com/zk9ZWigqwa— Telltale (@telltalegames) April 19, 2017
While Telltale’s The Walking Dead series has had its share of criticisms, they are still great games. Some say the decisions don’t matter enough, or that the writers just like to torture Clem, etc. I agree that the decisions they present to the player don’t seem to matter enough in many cases.
However, multiple narrative paths are expensive to create and require a lot more dialog to do right. To make it truly feel like your choices matter, you’d also likely need different cut scenes in different narrative paths as well. These are most likely the reasons why Telltale has not done this to the extent some players would like. Either way, here is the teaser trailer for Episode 4: Thicker Than Blood:
As for Clem, she has indeed been through quite a lot. You could argue that the writers like to torture the player, too, and not just Clem. While avoiding spoilers, the events in the later portion of season one were brutal, for example. Season 2 wasn’t without a really hard time either.
At the same time, loss is a big part of this post-apocalyptic world, and it adds depth to the narrative. Clem does not exactly live in a fairy tale world after all, and happy endings are hard to come by in a world decimated by the zombie apocalypse. Telltale’s The Walking Dead series is by no means perfect, but they are indeed great games. I’ve played them all, including The Walking Dead: Michonne miniseries. I thought they were all quite good games, and I remain a fan of the series and both of The Walking Dead TV shows.
